Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to US college campuses like the University of California at Davis, of which the above YouTubeVideo caption says, "Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis." The students pepper sprayed were peacefully sitting down. There are seventeen thousand comments on this video at YouTube, with over 900,000 views after two days posted, Saturday, November 19, 2011 and Sunday, 20th.

Looks like America's college campus may just explode after what happened at a non-violent protest at UC Davis. . . . This reminds me of the violent action of police against civil rights marchers back in the early 60's.

The Washington Post says:

The video, which shows the officer using the spray against Occupy protesters Friday, went viral over the weekend. On Sunday, the university placed two police officers on administrative leave while a task force investigates. The clip probably will be the defining imagery of the Occupy movement, rivaling in symbolic power, if not in actual violence, images from the Kent State shootings more than 40 years ago.

Putting this growing protest in context, college students have a lot to protest about:

Students are unable to find internships to offset the cost of their college expenses, and jobs after college are scare with 15-20% unemployment in that age-group. MSNBC says,

They will enter an economy where roughly 17% of people aged 20 through 24 do not have a job, and where two million college graduates are unemployed. They will enter a world where they will compete tooth and nail for jobs as waitresses, pizza delivery men, file clerks, bouncers, trainee busboys, assistant baristas, interns at bodegas.

Students' expected post-college income in decreasing, if they expect to have income at all;

Parents are less able to help students financially because their greatest asset -- the value of their houses -- has tanked. Second mortgages have become impossible with homes "underwater" and some parents' investments have become equally worthless.

Parents are taking additional jobs to pay basic household bills, and some parents are becoming unemployed, and even losing their homes;

Students are racking student debt at unprecedented levels. With no way to discharge this debt in bankruptcy, their only hope for relief, other than paying in perpetual debt servitude, may be to become "permanently and totally disabled" and "discharge" the debt with the US Department of Education. This might be an option for students whose debt drives them completely insane or who become permanently crippled in suicide attempts.

In this context of student fright about what has happened to their present and their future, students have every reason to join Occupy Wall Street protesters and begin to occupy US college campuses.

Angering the students even more against the Republican Party in particular, Republican presidential nomination candidate Newt Gingrich said yesterday, with respect to Occupy protesters,

"Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath.’”

The Republican debate audience responded to that comment by filling the Christian church with some of the loudest applause of the evening.

President Obama can't fire up student support for his re-election, but Republican presidential nomination candidate Newt Gingrich can rally students and many sympathetic Americans for the Democrats with comments like this one.

Add your voice. The following contact information for campus police and school officials was provided with the above video:

Title says all. During peacefully Occupy Movement, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprays the students to open a path for the rest of the officers.

*UPDATE*The officer who sprayed the students was UC Davis Police Lt. John PikeLieutenant John Pike - (530) 752-3989-Police Station #Email: japikeiii@ucdavis.edu